Heat and Humidity Will Make A September Appearance

About the Author

David Epstein has been a professional meteorologist and horticulturalist for three decades. David spent 16 years at WCVB in Boston and currently is a meteorology professor at Framingham State University and teaches a January Program at Colby College.

A cool comfortable morning means it was another fantastic night of sleeping weather. This is the last of these types of starts to the day for a while. Starting later tonight, the humidity comes back and itís going to hang around for a while.

Interestingly, Marthaís Vineyardís morning low fell to a chilly 39F under clear skies. This type of radiational cooling is typical for that location under the right conditions.

This month the most number of days in a row we had above 80 was four. Starting tomorrow we might be looking at 5 or 6 such days and the first half of them along with high levels of moisture in the air. Since we arenít really use to this type of pattern and itís back to the routine of September itís going to feel somewhat like a cruel trick of Mother Nature.

You likely have noticed itís very dry in many places. Much of southern New England is in the abnormally dry category. This map also doesnít take into account how dry some local communities are. At my own house in metrowest there are plenty of things drooping in the woods, the result of a very dry month.

We have no chance of rain today under a sunny sky. Humidity levels will be comfortable and temperatures warm, but not hot. It will be warmer at the beaches, reaching the mid to even upper 70s depending on which way the shoreline faces. South facing coastlines will be coolest this afternoon.

As high pressure slips off the coast tonight the humidity will creep back into New England. If you sleep with the windows open, you may actually feel the moisture going up throughout the night. By tomorrow that feeling of mid-summer will be back and afternoon highs will reach well into the 80s.

All is not perfect however. There will be clouds tomorrow, especially in the afternoon and towards evening when showers and thunderstorms are possible. Like so many of the other situations this summer, some of us will see no rain, while others see up to half and inch. The least likely places to get wet will be Cape Cod and the Islands, while inland areas west of Route 495 have the highest risk of showers and thunderstorms Sunday evening and overnight.

On Monday, I expect a warm and humid day with a chance of showers and thunderstorms, but most of the day will be dry. There will be a blend of clouds and sunshine.

The rest of next week continues to feature a broad flow of warm air. The humidity levels should decrease for the second half of the week, but temperatures are going to stay on the higher side of average for early September.

Hurricane activity tends to peak during the second week of September. Now that Cristobal is out of the picture there are actually no tropical cyclones in either the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean. This is quite amazing for a time of the year when we normally would be either tracking a storm or at least one that was forecast to develop. Things can change rather fast and weíll have to keep an out on the tropics through the fall.